Ohio
MANSFIELD NEWS JOURNAL
Judge delays decision in man's case against government
By Leo Shane III
September 25, 2003
COLUMBUS -- A federal judge has delayed his decision on whether a
Mansfield junkyard owner should be compensated for radioactive
contamination on his land.
U.S. District Judge James Graham announced after closing arguments
Wednesday he would need additional time to research the case. Tuesday,
he told attorneys to expect a ruling immediately after their final
statements.
At issue is whether the U.S. Department of Defense owes Allen Hogan
compensation for mistakenly selling him about 2,200 pounds of scrap
metal from a Minuteman nuclear missile in 1994. Hogan didn't discover
the mislabeled material was radioactive until years later.
Federal officials have spent more than $80,000 searching for and
removing the radioactive magnesium from Hogan's land -- a 27-acre plot
on Fifth Avenue -- but small pieces still remain.
U.S. Department of Justice Senior Attorney Steven Talson argued in his
closing arguments that those remaining scraps emit very low levels of
radiation, representing no real health threat, and the one-time
contamination has not damaged the property's value.
"This property has been cleaned up to proper standards," he said. "Any
award would be a windfall based on speculation."
This article can be viewed at:
http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/news/stories/20030925/localnews/328179.html
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